The Bible is a spiritual book that is written for the inner core and heart of man. It has to be perceived and understood by the heart, for the mind is not able to fully fathom it’s unmeasurable wisdom without having an living relationship with the Writer Himself.
Allow me to summarize here by listing 7 concrete reasons to trust that the Bible has been handed down to us accurately..
1. 24,600 Ancient manuscripts. – The NT is the most attested and supported document in all of ancient history. It’s better attested even than the following ancient documents combined: History of Thucydes, Poetics of Aristotle, Ceasar (Gallic Wars), Plato, Homer (The Iliad). it’s quite ‘overwhelming’. We have thousands of manuscripts from 300-1000 AD. We have hundreds of manuscripts going back to 100-300 AD. and this numbers does not include ancient translations into other languages! Translations into other languages, (from Greek to whatever) push the number above 40,000! This huge number of evidence could not be faked or manufactured. It is, in my opinion, not just strong confirmation of the New Testament, it is concrete proof that the scriptures we read today have been handed don to us accurately.
2. Written shortly after the events. – The New Testament is a collection of eye witness accounts! It is clear and virtually the entire NT was written before 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The earliest books where written in the 40’s, only 15 years after the resurrection of Jesus. The Bible is clearly a product of the middle of the first century, just as it always claimed to be.
3. Thousands of eye-witnesses where still alive. – These fervent spell checkers would not have allowed inaccuracy. No wild stories were added.
4. Libraries of different regions were in agreement. – Alexandria, Syria, Roma, Carthage, Constantine, etc. their manuscripts read virtually the same. In an age without phones or fax machines, this agreement of texts between libraries hundreds of miles apart is a huge testimony to the accuracy of the Scriptures. This cross-referencing confirms the integrity of the text.
5. Ancient lectionaries survive. – The early church would read from the scripture during the Sunday worship services. Instead of the entire New Testament, sometimes they used what we would call ‘lectionaries’. These lectionaries (from 600 AD onward) contain selected ‘favorite’ passages of scripture that were read in the public worship. They were for scripture reading what the hymn book is to singing. 2,200 have been identified throughout the ancient world. They confirm the wording of the text.
6. Qoutes from letters and journals of that time. – This one fact alone is astounding: Even if every single Bible and ancient manuscript were burned today, we would still have the New Testament (except 11 verses) because of the more than 80,000 times it was qouted in the commentaries and letters from that period. Even without any ancient manuscripts or modern Bibles, the text could be easily and accurately restored from the literature from that time.
7. Early translations. – 150-250 AD into Coptic, Latin, and Syriac also confirm the ancient wording of the text. As I said before, these translations push the number of ancient manuscripts to over 40,000!
Also here some links to websites that offer more indepth evidences:
A voyage of Glory! 